Smithfield Foods signs agreement to take over Morliny

On Thursday Spanish Campofrio Alimentacion announced it would sell Morliny, its Polish meat producer to American Smithfield Foods, which currently owns Animex. Both parties have signed a letter of intent concerning the issue and analysts agree that incorporating Morliny to the Animex group will substantially improve the group's competitiveness both on the domestic and foreign markets. "The price to be paid by Smithfield for Morliny seems to be low, taking into account the fact that the brand itself is worth zł.100 million," said Remigiusz Sopel from IDM. He added that merging both companies will allow boosting profitability, and according to Stanisław Zięba from the Meat Producers Association (ZPEiIM), it will allow the new entity to achieve a 13% market share in the red meat segment in Poland. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 9) M.M.